A man in his 30s is fighting for his life in hospital after being shot on a Woolwich street last night, as armed police continue the hunt for the suspects.
Police were called to Frances Street in Woolwich at 8.09pm on Thursday (22 October) after reports of gunfire. The victim was found with life-threatening injuries and was rushed to an east London hospital, where he remains in a critical condition.
Officers arriving at the scene gave first aid before crews from the London Ambulance Service and London’s Air Ambulance reached the victim.
The Metropolitan Police said firearms officers and a dog unit searched the surrounding area, but no suspects were found. No arrests have been made and no suspect has been named. Armed officers are routinely deployed in London to firearms incidents, and a police dog was brought in to help search the streets around the scene.
Detectives are now urging anyone who saw or heard anything suspicious around Frances Street at about 8pm on Thursday to come forward. Officers are particularly keen to hear from anyone with CCTV, dashcam or doorbell footage from the area.
Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101, quoting the reference CAD 6520/22OCT, or to contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Crimestoppers is an independent charity that takes information from people who do not want to speak to police directly. Callers do not have to give their name, and the charity says it has never revealed a caller’s identity. The reference CAD 6520/22OCT is the log number under which the shooting is recorded in the Met’s command-and-control system — quoting it helps call handlers bring up the right incident straight away.
In the hours after a shooting like this, detectives typically work to pin down exactly what happened in the minutes around the 8.09pm call — checking CCTV from shops and homes, speaking to residents, and tracing the victim’s movements earlier in the evening. Police have not yet said what weapon was used or whether more than one person was involved.
The latest update marks a significant development in the case. London Streets reported last night that a man believed to be in his early 20s had been found near a bus stop on Frances Street and taken to hospital, with a crime scene set up. Police have since said the victim is in his 30s and that his injuries are life-threatening.
Frances Street sits close to Woolwich town centre in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, where armed officers and emergency crews were seen working late into Thursday night.
The shooting is the latest serious firearms case in south-east London. Earlier this month, two men were jailed for a combined 55 years at Woolwich Crown Court over a shooting outside a Bexleyheath nightclub in the early hours of Sunday 4 January, which left a man with life-changing injuries. Marvin Bulle, 33, was sentenced to 35 years and Carlos Parks, 35, of Sidcup Road, Eltham, was jailed for 20 years at the same hearing on 9 October.
Violence across the capital remains stubbornly high. Analysis of the Met’s own crime figures shows the force recorded 279,664 violence against the person offences across London in the year ending September 2026 — a 7.6 per cent rise on the previous 12 months, although September itself saw a 3.3 per cent fall on August, suggesting the upward trend may be easing.
The Met had not issued a separate newsroom release on the Woolwich shooting as of Friday afternoon, and the witness appeal is being run through the force’s incident reference system.
This is a developing story and this article will be updated as more details emerge.
